Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely.
This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).

Search This Blog

7.11.13

While
the series
being run by the New OrleansTimes-Picayune and WVUE-TV on state
campaign finance is marginally helpful, it often leaves readers with
misimpressions and misses the obvious reform that would cure the system’s real
ills as well as those imagined by the authors.

Over
a period of months these media collected publicly-available campaign finance
data from 2009-12, essentially duplicating what the state presents already, but
added some value in trying to discover among donors common employers and creating
an index that can sorted by candidate and geographical area. It then produced
several stories highlighting various aspects of the system, hinting that this
is in pursuit of some kind of agenda, reform or otherwise.

But
while there are no factual errors in the series, the information often is
presented in a way that would leave the reader not properly informed about the
issue, or with the wrong idea about it. A perfect illustration of this misleading
comes from the very title of the series; “Louisiana Purchased.”

6.11.13

It’s
unfortunate when the struggles of a small town get used for questionable
polemic purposes, but that’s what happened when a liberal media figure
descended upon Lake Providence to try to convince us that we’re responsible for
a non-existent problem that our presumed ignorance prevents us from fixing.

In
trying to sell its political Hadacol to the country, the American left harps
upon the notion of economic “inequality,” that somehow it is the sign of a sick
economy and society that permits wide variations in the level of wealth among
its people. From a theoretical perspective, that’s sheer nonsense: the left by
trying to focus on relative amounts of wealth rather than absolute amounts, the
increase of which that then may cause greater disparity, ignores the proper
object of policy on which conservatism concentrates, trying to improve
everybody’s lot. Rather than redistribute wealth as liberalism mandates,
conservatism concerns itself with creation of wealth as it recognizes that
poverty comes from practices that inhibit individual initiative and ability to
contribute to society as the inhibitors of gaining wealth. After all, as study
of social mobility shows, when policy focuses on the conditions to make
this possible, indeed a rising tides does lift all boats, even if some get
pushed higher than others.

The
policy of stoking envy by the left loses when challenged because while there is
a subset of people who are fine with living in semi-squalor, hands out and
responsibilities and freedom forsworn, the majority wants policies that deliver
the opportunity for it to improve its lot. The left traditionally has tried to distract
the people from this by claiming the system is rigged, but only a limited
portion of the public is psychologically disposed to accept that.

5.11.13

So
Rep. Bill Cassidy a quarter-century
ago expressed skepticism about the Strategic Defense Initiative and more defense
spending in general. That these remarks of the then-Democrat, now leading
Republican candidate for the Senate in Louisiana got reported at all
underscores a phenomenon about the propensity for Democrats to make themselves
into a ring and fire outwards at their political enemies, while Republicans do
a 180 and fire at each other.

Since
then, Cassidy has become considerably older and wiser, as his lifetime
American Conservative Union voting record of nearly 87 attests, higher than
the chamber’s GOP member average of around 84. Yet among some conservatives, he
still remains suspect with all sorts of convoluted and unconvincing efforts to
paint his as the same as the incumbent that he challenges Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu, no doubt rooted on by
the Landrieu campaign that hopes this results in discouraging enough of the
conservative vote to fail to turn out to vote in Cassidy and/or has his
campaign waste resources by feeling it must respond to the baseless charge that
he is not conservative enough.

4.11.13

After
his long stint in statewide elected office, we’ve learned one thing about
Treas. John
Kennedy: if something is his idea, even if it has warts, he’ll promote it
as the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if somebody else comes up with something
else based on the same concept with solid evidence to confirm, he’ll criticize
it. His comments about privatization of state hospital operations provide an object
lesson in this trait.

Kennedy
has tried over the last several years to make himself a cottage industry about
running state government efficiently and not wastefully. His specialty has been
to repeat
endlessly some bromides along these lines that, at best, are hit-or-miss in
value, in part because some suggestions are too simplistic to work, and others
of them already are being done. Typically, such recommendations have little or
nothing to do with his actual job title, because he’s always seen that as a
springboard to higher office.

This
has driven him to a frustrating inconsistency reflected both in terms of
general ideology and on specific issues. A
decade ago, as the sitting Democrat treasurer he was running as a liberal for
the Senate seat eventually won then by Sen. David Vitter. Half
a decade ago, he had transfigured into a conservative, having switched his
partisan identification prior to his last treasurer reelection, to challenge unsuccessfully
for the seat now
slipping away from Sen. Mary Landrieu.

3.11.13

The gift that keeps on giving for
electoral opponents of Louisiana’s Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu also seems to have an
interesting anatomical effect: it’s causing her nose to grow longer and longer as
she resorts to distraction and outright lying to prevent being known as an
ignoramus or two-faced, perhaps both, to the continued deterioration of her
reelection effort.

As the internal contradictions of
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) become increasing
public and part of the public consciousness, its shortcomings have put
Landrieu, who provided the crucial vote for its passage, into full defensive
mode. Most damaging to her is the provision in it that is stripping apparently
as many as 16 million current health insurance policyholders of their coverage,
forcing many into far more expensive policies if they can afford them at all.
Even though this has been part of the program’s rules for years since its
passage, only now has she apparently become concerned enough to want to sponsor
legislation that would prevent this.

Naturally, this incident
highlights one of these contradictions – the law and its accompanying
regulations are designed to force people out policies that don’t meet the new
imposed minimums for scope of coverage, making many people to pay for services
they don’t want any may not even be able to use or afford or be fined, which
serves to decrease the number of those covered. This was chosen by Democrats
like Landrieu not to try to extend coverage to as many people as possible, but
to force them to pay more for coverage in order to expand money coming into the
system to attempt to jigger lower rates for some others; in other words, wealth
redistribution. At the same time, over the long run it is hoped to force enough
people out of the system so as to raise pressure for installation of a
single-payer, universal health care system, in that the payers of fines will
want that to become an insurance payment rather than for nothing and those
paying high rates can be convinced this is caused not by government regulation,
but by evil insurance companies exploiting the faulty free market.

About Me

Subscribe To

Comment publishing requirements

You must be a registered user with an OpenID-compliant service to leave comments, which will be moderated. Any comments that do not address issues in the post for which they are intended will not be posted; neither will those that utterly lack intellectual coherence.